Irish spirit market remains ‘robust’ – Intangible Business

“Generally, despite the challenging economy, the Irish spirit market has remained robust, with two Irish brands featuring in the top 25 of our Power 100 report – Jamesons and Baileys”- Stuart Whitwell, Joint Managing Director of Intangible Business.

In Baileys and Jameson, Ireland continues to have two brands among the Top 100 spirits and wine brands in the world.

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Baileys Irish Liqueur moves up one place to 12th in the Top 100 Brands from Intangible Business while Jameson Irish Whiskey holds its 22nd place.

Jameson is also singled out by Intangible Business for a particularly good performance, making this one of IB’s Star Performers, brands that have increased case sales by over half-a-million from the previous year.

In Jameson’s case, its 500,000 case increase to 3.4 million indicates a 16.4 per cent increase on the 2010 figure. Jameson takes eighth place in the ‘most powerful whisky brands’

“Generally, despite the challenging economy, the Irish spirit market has remained robust, with two Irish brands – Jameson and Baileys – featuring in the top 25 of our Power 100 report,” commented Stuart Whitwell, Joint Managing Director of Intangible Business, “Jameson, owned by Pernod Ricard, remains the Irish whisky brand and it has been almost solely responsible for the surge in interest in the country’s whisky as a whole.

“Similarly, Bailey’s remains a top 15 brand, increasing its sales volumes yet again and it stays the largest Irish success story with little chance of being moved from that position for some time.

“However,” he continued, “the Diageo-owned brand’s relatively low growth over the past year begs the question as to whether it is somewhat running out of steam. As the brand moves away from solely focusing on the classic flavour to the introduction of a new range – including the most recent, Biscotti – Diageo run the risk of diluting the strength of the brand. The fact that they launched a £2.5 million marketing campaign for the release of the Biscotti version may be a sign that previous releases were not as successful as they had hoped.

“Outside of our Power 100, competitors should also be watching out for Kilbeggan, the Beam-owned whisky. Based in Kilbeggan in Co Westmeath, the brand is destined to establish itself as a big name once again, since its revival under Beam and its push into American markets.”

Diageo and Pernod Ricard followed by Bacardi Martini remain the world’s biggest brand owners.

Hennessy enjoys top position in the ‘strongest brands’ category and also takes top position as the ‘most powerful brandy brand’ while Jagermeister performs similarly in the ‘most powerful flavoured spirits brands’ category.
In rum, this position is held by Bacardi ahead of Captain Morgan in second place.

Diageo’s Smirnoff continues to maintain top position in the ‘most powerful vodka brands’ category, ahead of Absolut but it should watch out. Absolut gets a Star Performer medal for its 800,000 case increase to 11.2 million, indicating an eight per cent rise in sales on the 2010 figure.

Smirnoff again tops the The Power 100 league with year-on-year growth of around one per cent to 24 million cases followed by Johnnie Walker, Bacardi, Martini, Hennessy, Absolut, Jack Daniels, Chivas Regal, Captain Morgan and Ballantine’s.

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